Preliminary data from the investigator's lab identified novel patterns of differential DNA methylation in genes regulating cardiovascular and metabolic function in blood from women during the first trimester of pregnancy who were destined to develop preeclampsia (PE) in the third trimester. Further, common patterns of differential DNA methylation were found in the common genes from placental tissue at time of birth in the same women after diagnosis with PE, suggesting that the epigenomic patterns that predict pregnancy-induced hypertension may also underlie the development of chronic hypertension years after.

It is unknown whether aberrant DNA methylation in pregnancy-induced hypertension is the mechanism by which chronic hypertension develops in these women remote from pregnancy nor is it known if hypertension remote from PE is as responsive to therapeutic treatment of hypertension compared to women who develop hypertension without history of PE. The investigators plan to objectively test the central hypothesis and attain the objective of this project

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Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01682304